#NASA #astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, along with Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, are set to launch from Kennedy Space Center as soon as April 1 aboard NASA’s towering Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, riding inside an Orion crew capsule built to carry humans into deep space. The roughly 10-day mission will send the crew on a high-speed loop around the moon and back.

Boeing is the prime contractor for the SLS core ​stage, Northrop Grumman builds ​the rocket’s solid-fuel boosters, and Lockheed Martin produces the Orion spacecraft.

Artemis II will ‌be the first crewed mission ⁠of NASA’s multibillion-dollar Artemis program. While it will not attempt a moon landing, it will send astronauts farther from Earth than any previous human spaceflight, testing the Orion spacecraft’s life-support systems, navigation, communications and heat shield performance.

The crew has spent more than two years training for the mission since being named in 2023. They have been in standard preflight quarantine at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston since March 18 and are ⁠scheduled to move into NASA’s Astronaut Crew Quarters in Florida ahead of launch.

Glover, the mission’s pilot, will become the first Black astronaut to travel into the moon’s vicinity. Koch will be the first woman to do so, while Hansen will be the first non-American astronaut to go beyond low-Earth orbit toward ⁠the moon.

All of the crew members except Hansen have previously been in space. Wiseman, the mission commander, told reporters last year that the crew were prepared for all eventualities.

“When we get off the planet, we might come right back home, we might spend three or four days around Earth, we might go to the moon - that’s where ​we want to go," Wiseman said. “But it is a test mission, and we’re ready for every scenario.”

NASA’s Artemis astronauts enter final preparations for moon mission

Lost in space: #Sperm struggles to navigate during weightless sex.

Some particularly resilient sperm still made it through the course, suggesting that conceiving children in space will still be possible, according to research published on Thursday.

However a bigger problem could be that the development of embryos after fertilisation was harmed by a lack of gravity, the Australian team of researchers found.

With humanity setting its eyes on colonising space - next week NASA hopes to launch its first crewed mission around the Moon in half a century - scientists have been studying how difficult it will be to procreate on spaceships or other worlds.

One of the biggest challenges is that sperm will no longer be pulled downwards by Earth’s gravity.

“Sperm need to actively find their way to an egg, and this study is the first to put that ability to the test under space-like conditions,” Nicole McPherson, a researcher at Adelaide University in Australia, told AFP.

The scientists used a plastic chamber that resembles the female reproductive tract to act as a “miniature obstacle course”, the senior author of the new study said.

“Think of it as a tiny race track... sperm are introduced at one end and have to swim their way through to the other.”
Filtering out weak runners

Both human and mice sperm were sent down the course, which was inside a device that uses constant rotation to simulate the microgravity of space.

The sperm was about 50 per cent worse at navigating through the course compared to how they perform under Earth’s gravity.

This worked out to be roughly a 30 per cent drop in successful fertilisation, according to the study in the journal Communications Biology.

However the sperm that did make it through seemed to produce better-quality embryos, which could turn out to be “beneficial”, McPherson said.

It appeared that the stress of microgravity acted as a “filter” that effectively cleared the field, “leaving only the most capable sperm in the running,” she explained.

A bigger problem came in the first 24 hours after sperm had fertilised the eggs.

“The results reversed sharply, with fewer embryos formed, and those that did were of poorer quality,” McPherson said.

This suggests that microgravity “may not be the deal-breaker we feared, but protecting the embryo from weightlessness in those critical first hours will likely be essential for reproduction in space,” she added.

Some including billionaire SpaceX founder Elon Musk have ambitious plans to make humans an interplanetary species by establishing settlements on the Moon then Mars.

There has also been speculation that the first baby conceived outside the bounds of Earth could be the result of a couple having sex on a flight launched by the booming space tourism industry.

McPherson emphasised that much more research is needed to understand how reproduction works in space, adding that fertilisation is “only one small piece of a very long and complex puzzle”.

“We are still a long way from seeing the first space baby.”

WASHINGTON — #NASA is halting plans to develop the lunar Gateway and instead focusing on the development of a lunar base.

China’s Astronstone raises $29 million for reusable rocket with chopstick-style recovery

#KOROLYOV /Moscow Region - March 22 - #TASS - A Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket with the Progress MS-33 resupply ship successfully lifted off from the Baikonur spaceport towards the International Space Station (ISS), a TASS correspondent reported from Russia’s Flight Control Center.

In about nine minutes after the lift-off, the Progress MS-33 resupply ship separated from the upper stage of the Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket and entered the designated orbit.

It will take the resupply ship about 49.5 hours to approach the orbital outpost. Its docking with the Poisk module of the Russian segment of the International Space Station is expected at 4:35 p.m. Moscow time (1:35 p.m. GMT) on March 24.

The Progress MS-33 resupply ship will deliver 2,509 kg of useful cargo to the ISS, including 1,211 kg of dry cargo for the ISS Expedition 74 crew and the space station’s systems, in particular, equipment for the Sun-Terahertz scientific experiment, 828 kg of propellant for the station’s refueling, 420 liters of potable water for cosmonauts and 50 kg of oxygen to replenish the ISS atmosphere, it said.

The Progress MS is a Russian automatic spacecraft designed to service orbital stations, deliver various cargo to the International Space Station (propellant, scientific equipment, oxygen, potable water, food and other supplies) and adjust its orbit.

Years of training keep Artemis II crew mission-ready, researcher says.

“They’ve been preparing for years, so what is a few more months,” said Dr. Farhan Asrar, a physician, space medicine researcher and associate dean at Toronto Metropolitan University’s School of Medicine.

“One thing that I’ve always kind of appreciated and respected in the life of astronauts … is it’s always expecting the unexpected and how do you best prepare for that?”

NASA has targeted an April 1 launch for Artemis II, with six-day launch window running through April 6 announced last week.

Hansen, 50, of London, Ont., will serve as mission specialist during Artemis II, becoming the first non-American to travel beyond low Earth orbit, a historic achievement for Canada. His crewmates are veteran NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch. The mission is scheduled to last 10 days.

Apart from Hansen, fellow Canadian astronaut Jenni Gibbons, 37, of Calgary is also serving as Hansen’s backup and will be supporting the crew from ground control.

The mission has been delayed a few times since an intended February launch window opening due to a hydrogen fuel leaks and helium flow problems with the Space Launch System rocket.

But Asrar notes that delays are part of the game and the astronauts have been on a multi-year program that includes physical training, technical simulations and scenarios of what could happen during the mission.

So physically they are always ready, but there are other aspects, such as team-building, getting to know each other and carving out personal time with families.

“It’s just basically continuing that same process in order to be prepared for eventually once that mission day comes in,” Asrar said.

While the lunar mission is only 10 days, Asrar said one of the interesting things about the Artemis II mission from a health perspective is the four astronauts will be confined to the Orion capsule, which is about the size of a camper van.

“The crews must really get along with each other, know each other really well, because interestingly, with the exception of the bathroom, there is no other privacy or door that is separated,” Asrar said.

“So they’ll be eating, drinking, working, even their own personal time and reflection or self-reflection times would be with everybody around you though as well.”

For a possible April 1 launch, NASA said pre-launch quarantine for the crew would begin around March 18 before they travel to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on March 27.

Artemis II is also historic in that it moves thinking toward long duration deep space missions. Asrar’s research looks at human health in space, which includes deep space missions.

“It is opening the doors to basically now looking at living on the moon for longer periods, and then are we also then looking toward the Mars space missions,” he said.

For those long distance missions, considerations include how to deliver care when there isn’t an easy way to connect with Earth, as is the case with the International Space Station.

In the event of a medical emergency, as occurred recently with the Crew-11 mission that was cut short in January, there was a quick return to Earth in NASA’s first ever medical evacuation.

“However, when you look at, let’s say for example, Mars, it might take us close to seven to 10 months to just travel one way,” Asrar said. That raises the question of whether crews can handle all medical issues from assessment to recovery. There is also the issue how to handle limited medical supplies.

#Artemis II, Asrar says, will provide more insight about how to answer some of those questions.

Sidhartha Banerjee, The Canadian Press

A #NASA spacecraft is set to make an uncontrolled plunge back to Earth. Here are the risks.

A massive space probe could plummet into Earth’s atmosphere as soon as Tuesday evening — years earlier than expected. And while most of the spacecraft will likely disintegrate in a flaming blaze during reentry, a few components could survive, according to NASA.

Early analyses predict the 1,323-pound (600-kilogram) vehicle will strike the atmosphere around 7:45 p.m. ET Tuesday, “with an uncertainty of +/- 24 hours,” according to NASA and the U.S. Space Force.

The odds that a piece of debris will cause harm to a person is about 1 in 4,200, the space agency said in a news release.

That’s a low chance, according to NASA, and more favourable odds than those of space debris incidents of years past.

“We’ve had things that have reentered have a one in 1,000 chance, and nothing happened; if we have a few that are one in 4,000 or 5000, it’s not a horrible day for mankind,” said Dr. Darren McKnight, a senior technical fellow at space-tracking company LeoLabs.

But this risk is decidedly higher than some other notable events — including the 2018 reentry of China’s space station that put parts of the world on edge. The chance of debris hitting a human in that scenario was estimated to be less than one in a trillion, and no one was ultimately harmed.

The spacecraft currently in question is the now-defunct Van Allen Probe A, which NASA launched alongside a twin vehicle in 2012 to study the two cosmic bands of high-energy particles that are trapped in Earth’s magnetic field at altitudes ranging from about 400 to 93,300 miles (640 to 58,000 kilometres).

“The belts shield Earth from cosmic radiation, solar storms, and the constantly streaming solar wind that are harmful to humans and can damage technology, so understanding them is important,” NASA said in a Tuesday statement. The Van Allen probes mission “made several major discoveries about how the radiation belts operate during its lifetime, including the first data showing the existence of a transient third radiation belt, which can form during times of intense solar activity.”

The Van Allen Probe A — along with its twin, the Van Allen Probe B — studied the radiation belts for years longer than expected before concluding their mission in 2019 when the vehicles ran out of fuel.
End-of-life planning

From the outset, NASA intended to dispose of the radiation-studying spacecraft by allowing them to burn up in the atmosphere as they plummeted to Earth. It was understood that a fiery cauldron of physics would likely reduce the probes to trace fragments by the time they reach the ground.

Mission planners mapped out the probes’ return home when the spacecraft concluded its mission — conducting a few maneuvers designed to expel any remnants of fuel and confirm that the vehicles were in a position for atmospheric drag to slowly pull them out of orbit. That ensures the defunct spacecraft aren’t left to spend eternity flying uncontrolled through Earth orbit, where they could run the risk of colliding with active satellites or habitats such as the International Space Station.

Initially, NASA predicted the spacecraft would return home in 2034.

“However, those calculations were made before the current solar cycle, which has proven far more active than expected. In 2024, scientists confirmed the Sun had reached its solar maximum, triggering intense space weather events,” NASA said in a Tuesday statement. “These conditions increased atmospheric drag on the spacecraft beyond initial estimates, resulting in an earlier-than-expected re-entry.”

The Van Allen Probe B is also now on track to be dragged out of orbit before 2030.

The space agency’s policies require that vehicles launched by the U.S. reenter or be safely disposed of within 25 years of the mission’s end. Safe disposal can include deorbiting the spacecraft or positioning it in a graveyard orbit, or an area of space designated for abandoned spacecraft to linger in orbit.

Graveyard orbits have their own issues, noted McKnight. Leaving a spacecraft in one doesn’t completely alleviate the risks of in-orbit collisions, and any run-ins present the possibility of junk spewing into other areas where active satellites are operating.

In the case of the Van Allen Probes, reaching a grave yard orbit also would have expended precious fuel that was used to gather additional science.

In recent years, there have been calls from inside and outside NASA warning about the growing risks of spaceborne debris.

“There’s been a lot more awareness of the importance of this issue,” said Marlon Sorge, a space debris expert with the federally funded research group The Aerospace Corporation. Since the Van Allen probes were launched in 2012, “in that time there’s been increasingly more awareness of the need to try to mitigate what survives to the ground.”

It’s possible, Sorge said, that NASA may have designed the mission differently if it launched today — perhaps aiming to ensure no piece of the vehicle would survive reentry as many modern satellite operators do.

As the cost of spaceflight has been steeply reduced in the last couple of decades, the space debris issue has grown in scope and scale.

Recent headline-grabbing incidents have included a piece of garbage jettisoned from the International Space Station that unexpectedly survived reentry and pierced the roof of a home in Florida in 2024. Pieces of hardware from private rocket companies, including SpaceX and Blue Origin, have also turned up on beaches and private property across the world.

Such instances are actually fairly common, noted McKnight.

“We get about one object a week — a dead rocket body, another payload that isn’t maybe as high a profile as this. So that happens about once a week that some mass will survive to the ground,” McKnight said.

Feds announce nearly $1 billion for domestic defence innovation, drone #technology with #Bombardier.

As the federal government seeks to bolster its domestic defence industry, Industry Minister Melanie Joly announced more than $900 million for defence innovation in Canada, including money for drone technology and a new Bombardier aircraft.

Joly made the announcement in Ottawa on Monday at the National Research Council (NRC), alongside National Defence Minister David McGuinty and Secretary of State (Defence Procurement) Stephen Fuhr.

The funding is part of the federal government’s new defence industrial strategy unveiled in February, which pledged $6.6 billion over five years to prioritize homegrown production, double Canada’s defence exports, and create 125,000 new jobs over the decade.

The money will be invested through the NRC to grow domestic capacity in drone and aerospace technologies. More than $500 million will be put towards acquiring a new Canadian-built Bombardier Global 6500 aircraft that will be used for defence-related technology development and creating a Drone Innovation Hub in Ottawa and Montreal.

Other initiatives include launching a Biomedical Countermeasures Initiative to accelerate and develop sovereign capacity for tools like vaccines and therapeutics, and support for Canadian businesses that are developing dual-use technology, referring to tools that can be used for both civilian and military purposes.

There will also be $161 million over five years for quantum technology development.

“We are living in a much more chaotic and dangerous world and we know that national security and economic security really go hand in hand,” Joly said while speaking to the media.

Joly also pointed to the NRC, which was established during the First World War, in June 1916, and the organization’s contribution to “national war efforts” during the Second World War.

“We’ve done it before, we can do it again,” Joly said.

Asked by reporters how many jobs are linked to the more than $900 million investment, Joly couldn’t provide an answer but insisted “jobs will be created.”

“In the $900 million, there is definitely the Bombardier aircraft, which will create jobs itself in Ontario, in Quebec, but also at Cascade in B.C.,” Joly said.

Investments under the defence industrial strategy are part of Canada’s larger commitment to spend two per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) on defence in 2025-26.

German launch startup Rocket Factory Augsburg (#RFA) says it is planning its first launch for this summer after delivering two of its stages to the launch site.